The Industrial Revolution in America

Automobiles, Mining and Petroleum, Textiles

by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom

The Industrial Revolution was the wellspring from which the modern United States emerged. But look closer at specific industries and you will see the nation confronting the inevitable side effects of modernization for the first time, among them urbanization and a shift from a farm-based economy (textile manufacturing), labor unrest (mining and petroleum), and pollution and rampant consumerism (the automobile industry).

Hardcover

eBook

Covers the emergence of the automobile manufacturing, mining and petroleum, and textile industries and their separate and interconnected roles in the overall Industrial Revolution that transformed the United States and the world.

This three-volume set from ABC-CLIO's Industrial Revolution in America series draws on the latest research to tell the stories of the industry that started the United States down the road toward economic revolution (textiles), the industry that represented the revolution’s ultimate destination (automobiles), and the industry that fueled the journey by turning the nation’s natural resources into sources of wealth and power.

How did the mid-19th century “bicycle boom” pave the way for America’s car culture? What role did the mining industry play in settling the West? Why did Thomas Jefferson find the rise of textile manufacturing troubling? What roles did other industries play in the phenomenal development of these three—and vice versa? The answers to these and other probing questions lie in this remarkable set.

Features

Sidebars take readers deeper into intriguing topics by spotlighting primary documents such as Walter Reuther's account of the infamous 1937 "Battle of the Overpass," tracts decrying working conditions in New England textile mills, and a firsthand account of Henry Ford's development of the Model T

Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom are professional writers. Their published works include all six volumes in ABC-CLIO's The World's Environments series as well as the Encyclopedia of Small Business (second edition) and the first edition of the Encyclopedia of American Industries.